I have made a few big mistakes in…
I have made a few big mistakes in running my business over the years. Among the top 2 are getting involved with harbortouch. I was told by the salesman that there was a three year commitment. During that three years I experienced a multitude of issues, and paid over 5% total for my "free" system. the first red flag was that I went into it with some concerns, but was told there was a 30 day period that I could return the system. A couple weeks in, when I called with some concern over the operations, I was told that the 30 day period was up, because it started the day the order was placed, and NOT the day it arrived two weeks later. That was the first indication that they were operating in bad faith. for the next few months every time they did a system update, it took place at noon. that was a busy tie for me, and the system shut down completely for 30 minutes or longer. Customers who couldn't pay just left. I called every time this happened of course, and got zero response. No consideration for the fact that they were costing me revenues. There are many flaws in the system. The pool on employees contained all the staff that was ever employed, with no way to clear out all but the current employees, making it difficult or impossible to use. They could not calculate the hours for the staff. the daily reports had the credit line and the cash income line in random order day to day. Gift cards were treated as income when sold, and were treated as income when redeemed, so there was income tax to pay on both transactions. the screen had categories and items, the categories on the left could be moved around to where it made sense, the items on the right went on the screen in the order that they were entered in the system and could never move Many other things, that I have forgotten. I used to keep a list. but the main problem was that, after fulfilling my three year commitment I switched to another system which operates better, gives more options for tracking sales, hourly sales reports, etc., with many functions unavailable on harbortouch. This was not my first change of processor. I had at first used the first processor to cold-call me when I opened up in 2008. They had some bogus fees, which at the time seemed outrageous, but they were less than 100 dollars each to switch bank account numbers after my bank had been compromised, etc. I switched to Gravity Payments, and was assessed another fee that was hidden int eh fine print of the 50+ page contract. Then when someone came in to sell me another system that was supposedly lots cheaper, I switched. Had no fees from Gravity. Then I bought into the Harbortouch deal, thinking that they were representing themselves fairly. I have rarely been so wrong about anything. After fulfilling my three year obligation, they have automatically unilaterally extended my contract three years for processing and 2 years for the POS system, (or the other way around, who cares which?) That means that a person can never make a clean break fro their system. Now they are charging me over 3,000 for leaving them, they say they assess like 79 a month for all remaining months on the extended contract. I have been referring them to my lawyer for a year. They do not respond via the lawyer. They have not produced a contract where I agreed to this automatic extension. I expect to have to go to court, and the possibility exists that I will be forced to pay their extortion. This is NOT the way a legitimate business operates. if they provided a good service at a fair price they would not have to use predatory techniques to make money and keep customers. tl/dr: STAY AWAY FROM HARBORTOUCH if anyone is starting a class action against them i will join.
By Carter